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Published on: October 7, 2014
Colonic Transit Induced by Intermittent Stimulation of Sacral S2 Spinal Root in Cats with Intact or Injured Spinal
Jialiang Chen1, Bing Shen1, Jicheng Wang1
1Department of Urology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Objectives:
This study investigated whether low frequency (7 Hz) intermittent (one minute ON/OFF) stimulation of sacral S2 spinal root could induce colonic transit in anesthetized cats with intact spinal cords or complete spinal cord injury (SCI).
Materials And Methods:
Colonic transit was directly observed by tracking the displacement of intraluminal glass marbles prepositioned in the proximal (score = 3), middle (score = 2), or distal colon (score = 1). Colonic transit is quantified by a reduction of the colon score that was calculated by summation of all marble's score.
Results:
In cats with intact spinal cords (N = 5), intermittent S2 root stimulation induced colonic transit during a 60-minute period, significantly (p < 0.05) reducing the colon score from 6.4 ± 0.2 to 4.4 ± 0.7. In cats with complete SCI (N = 5), the 60-minute S2 root stimulation also induced colonic transit, significantly (p < 0.05) decreasing the colon score from 5.8 ± 0.4 to 3.2 ± 0.9.
Conclusions:
These findings show that low frequency intermittent sacral neuromodulation is effective in facilitating colonic transit in both neurologically intact and cats with SCI, providing promising preclinical evidence to develop a novel sacral neuromodulation therapy to treat chronic constipation caused by slow colonic transit.
